


(This is my) Kingdom Come

by serenissima (killalla)



Category: James Asher Vampire Series - Barbara Hambly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8883580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killalla/pseuds/serenissima
Summary: Perhaps it's not all that surprising that Don Simon became an "old friend of the family."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gryfeathr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gryfeathr/gifts).



Premise

From the Private Diary of Professor Miranda Asher, Shrewsbury College, Oxford

Vampires are real – this I have always known. But they are not the stuff of gothic novels and picture shows, beautiful and romantic. Perhaps they could best be compared to some kind of large feline or marine predator – dominant in their ecosystem, frighteningly powerful and unaccountably alien. But at times, for whatever reason, one will opt to shelter, even adopt, a few weak humans. 

Origins

She can’t remember the first time she saw him. From the time she could form coherent thought, he was already a part of her mental landscape. Slender and sparse, with hair the colour of straw and those golden eyes – he would appear, always at the corner of her vision. 

In her memories, he would often be huddled in intense conversation with one or the other of her parents, but at other times, just sitting, observing silently from the corner of the room. It would be several years before she understood why he was watching, and what he was waiting for.

Orphan

Of course, the Willoughbys were outraged that her parents had left her guardianship to a stranger – a foreigner, at that. “We’ve never even met him – I hear he was some colleague of James’?” Still, the terms of the will were quite clear and everything had been meticulously arranged through a particularly formidable firm of London solicitors in anticipation of possible legal challenge.

Not that it mattered much – at sixteen, Miranda would have her inheritance in a few years, and already had plans to read history at Oxford. It was with her other education that Mama and Papa had been most concerned, and in that Don Simon was the best teacher she could possibly have, and perhaps the only guardian who could actually keep her safe. 

Acolyte

Taking a deep breath, she fixes her attention on the doorway, trying to ignore the instinct like an itch her mind, telling her to go over and close the window, she’s left it on the latch.

Then, he is standing at her shoulder, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, although she knows, logically, that it was the distraction that made her lose focus, clouding her thoughts while he calmly walked across the room. “Again!”

“I can’t.” Her head aches, she has been concentrating like this for hours. “If you are actually trying to block me, there’s no way I can focus on your presence.” Of course, she understands the mechanic of vampire “glamour” as her mother called it, but practicing the mental discipline needed to defeat it was another matter entirely.

“You can and you will.” His words are calm, almost a whisper, but it is a clear command. “I made a promise to your parents to keep you safe – and I intend to keep it. Again!”

It was not until he became her guardian that she understood what a taskmaster Don Simon was. In other respects gracious, generous, even at times oddly affectionate, he was ruthless on the subject of training. As if he knew just how to push her to the breaking point, but not beyond it.

And she would later have cause to thank him for his rigour in this, as well as the lessons in firearms and hand-to-hand combat. For the life of a vampire hunter is a dangerous one, even when one happens to be a globetrotting heiress and an aspiring academic. And more than once, it was his acerbic, imperious voice in her head (or if things had gone particularly badly, in person), which spurred her to find a way out of the latest dilemma.

Heir

“Damn it, Simon – stop being such a maiden aunt! We aren’t going to make it out of here with you in a weakened state, and if that means I suffer a bit of anemia, it’s a small price to pay. I’ll eat a big steak after this, I promise.”

He shook his head, lips pressed together in a grim line. “Impossible. Instead, I suggest we focus on enabling your escape, after which I’ll find my way out through the sewers.”

She sighed. Despite his obvious frailty after weeks of starvation, Simon was evidently still going to be a stubborn old man. “Unacceptable. We’re leaving together, or not at all. Chivalry aside, how do you expect me to get past the guards without some ability to obfuscate my presence? Besides, if my father could, I don’t see why I can’t.”

His head snapped up and he gave her what she privately referred to as “the look,” a glare that would simultaneously freeze your blood and put the fear of God in you. “I never once fed on either of them. And I don’t intend to start with you.”

“For Heaven’s sake, why not?”

“It would be – too intimate.“ He looked genuinely distressed. “And, it would allow me a certain degree of control, in future, such that I might compel you to do my bidding.” 

“Oh, Simon.” For an ancient vampire aristocrat, her guardian was sometimes remarkably obtuse. “You have been walking in my dreams since I was a baby, and you are in all practical respects another parent to me. Do you think that there is anything you could ask of me that I would not willingly grant?”

“I could,” and here there was a heartening sign, a trace of his usual sardonic tone “Ask you to behave like a proper young woman, rather than wear those indecent dresses. I concede one must keep abreast of fashion, but surely uncovered knees are too much?”

“If we get out of this, then on my honour, I will wear anything you wish. Besides, you have also have a promise to keep, remember?”

Legacy

Lydia had run away from the funeral. Or more precisely, she had run away afterwards, amidst the tea and sandwiches and insincere expressions of sympathy and snuck back out to the churchyard, where Grandma Miranda was buried. Her cousins would probably get into another fight anyway, and no one would notice, as she usually found a quiet corner to read a book.

She thought she recognised the man at first, until she realised that in the gathering dark, she had mistaken him for being much older than he was. It was perhaps the slightly old fashioned suit – it looked like something from about a decade ago, although clearly quite posh – maybe from one of those 1920’s detective serials? 

And something made her freeze, and for a frantic moment, something in her wanted to run – to turn around and head back to the main house as quickly as possible. But then, he looked up.

Odd, clear eyes – like a cat’s – fixed her and again, she felt a rising panic. But, this was ridiculous. She straightened her spine.

“Hello - I don’t think we met at the funeral. I’m Lydia. Were you friends with my grandmother?”

The man bowed ever so slightly. His voice had just the hint of a foreign accent – Italian, Spanish? “That is an astute question, child. But the answer is quite – complicated, shall we say. It may take some time in the telling, and the sharing of it will have consequences. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

Something clicked then, and she knew. This was where her chapter in the story would start – if she wanted it. And she did. “Yes. Yes, absolutely.”

“Very well.” He offered his elbow, which she took. His arm was thin, but had a certain sinewy strength to it. “I am Simon Ysidro. And everything started the night I hired your great-grandfather to help me hunt a murderer.” Together, they began to walk back towards the house.

**Author's Note:**

> I've borrowed Shrewsbury College, Oxford from Dorothy L. Sayers, but I'm absolutely sure it would be good fit for Miranda. Also, I fear I've now made Don Simon Ysidro the eternal Watcher for every future generation of Asher vampire ~~slayers~~ hunters, but I think that might also be what he's always wanted.


End file.
